The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1887-01-14
CHAPTER vi.
THE AWAKENING.

CHAPTER vi.
THE AWAKENING.
Deeper emotions than he had felt before in
all his life of shallow aimlessness stirred
Harry Glen's bosom as he turned away from
the door which Rachel Bond closed behind
her with a decisive promptness that chorded
well with her resolute compOsure during the
interview.
This blow fell much more heavily than any
that had preceded it, because it descended
from the towering height to which he had
raised his expectations of an ardent greeting
from loving girl, eagerly watching for his
return.
As was to be expected from one of his
nature, he forgot entirely his nominations
upon the ACCESSIBILITY of discarding her, and
the difficulty he experienced in devising a
plan whereby this could be done easily and
gracefully. He only thought of himself as
the blameless victim of a woman's fickleness.
The bitter things he had read and heard of
the sex's Inconsistency rose in his mind, as
acrid bile sometimes ascends in ones throat
"Here," he said to himself, "is an instance
of feminine perfidy equal to anything
that Byron ever sneered at. This girl,
who was so proud to receive my at
tentions little while ago, and who so
gladly accepted me for her promised hus-
band, now turns away at the slightest cloud
of disapproval falling upon me. And to
think, too, how 1 have given her all my
heart, and lavished upon her love as deep
and true as ever man gave woman"
He stopped for moment and gazed at the
old apple tree, under which they had stood
when
Their spirits rushed together at the meeting of
their lips.
But its raiment of odoreus blossoms was
gone Instead, it bore load of shapeless,
sour, unripened fruit. Instead of the freshly
springing grass at its foot was now a coarse
stubble. Instead of the delicately sweet
breath of violets and fruit blooms seeming
the evening air came the heavy, persistent
perfume Of tube roses, and the mawkish scent
of gaudy poppies
"Bah it smells like funeral" he said, and
he turned away and walked slowly down the
hill. "And 1t is one My heart and all my
hopes lie buried at the foot of that old apple
| tree"
1t had been suggested that much of the
sympathy we lavish upon martyrs is wanton
waste, because to many minds, if not in fact
to all, there is a positive pleasure in consider
ones self martyr. More absolute truth is
contained in this than appears at the first
blush. There are very few who do not roll
under their tongues rs a sweet morsel the be-
lief that their superior goodness or generos-
ity has brought them trouble and affection
from envious and wicked interiors.
So the honey that mingled with the gall
and hyssop of Harry Glens humiliation was
the martyr feeling that his hottest affections
had been ruthlessly trampled upon by a cold
hearted woman. His desultory readings of
Byron furnished his imagination with all the
woeful suits and trappings necessary to trick
himself out as a melancholy hero
On his way home he had to pass the prin-
cipal hotel in the place. the front of which,
on summer evenings, was the Sardis forum
for the discussion of national politics and
local gossip. As he approached quietly along
the grassy walk, he overheard his own name
used He stepped back into the shadow of a
large maple and listened.
eyes, l seen him as he got off the train,"
said Nels Hathaway, big, fat, lazy, and the
most invetcrate male gossip in the village.
"And he is looking mighty well-yes, mighty |
we'll l said to Tim Botkins here, what |
wonderful constitution Harry Glen has, to be |
sure, to stand the hardships of the field SO
WE'LL"
1uo SdTCuSIl was so cFlueIIU CudU |
blood seethed. The Tim Botkins alluded to |
had been dubbed by Basil Wurmset, the
cynic and wit of the village, "apt apprecia-
TONS artful aid" Red-haired, soft-eyed,
moon-faced, round of belly and Emphatic of
temperament, his principal occupation in life
was to play a fiddle in the Sardis string band,
and in the intervals of professional engage
ments at dances and picnics to fill one of the
large splint- bottomed chairs in front of the
hotel with lis pulpy form, and receive the
smart or bitter sayings of the loungers there
with laugh that began before any one else's
and lasted after the others had gotten through.
His laugh alone was as good as tn; of all the
rest of the crowd. 1t was not a hearty, reso-
nant laugh, like that from the mouth of a
strong lunged, wholesome natured man, which
has the mellow roundness of a solo on q
French horn. 1t was slovenly, greasy, con-
victionless laugh, with uncertain tones and
ill-defined edges Its effect was due to j
volume readiness and long continuance.
Swelling up of the puffy form, and reddening
ripples of the broad face heralded it; it began
with contagious cackle, 1T deepened into
flabby guffaw, and after all the Others round
about had finished their cachinnatory tribute
it wound up with what was between a roar
and the lazy drone of a bagpipe.
1t now rewarded Nels Hathaway's irony,
and the rest of the loungers joined in. En-
couraged, Nels continued, as its last echoes
died away:
ayes, he's just as spry and peart as any
body. He seems to have recovered entirely
from all his wounds; none of 'em have dis
figgered him any, and his nerves have got
over their terrible strain" II
Tim ran promptly through all the notes in
his diapason. and the rest Joined in on the
middle register.
ard give six bits" Hathaway said, ito ,
know how the meeting between him and
Rachel Bond passes off. He's gone up to the
house. The boys seen him, all dressed up in
his best. But his finery and his perfumed
won't count anything with her,
can tell you. She comes Of fighting stock, I
Il ever a woman did. The Bonds and Har-
mothers .,eople-are game